Baby dedications must be renewed

The Bible records Jesus as being presented at the temple in Jerusalem to be set apart as holy for the Lord. This practice of baby dedication is still prevalent today and practised by various religions, both Christian and otherwise. Some baby dedications are occult based and must be renewed.

Luke 2:21-22 ESV And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”)

Baby dedications in the occult realm

Evidence of baby dedications can be found throughout history, with the most extreme being child sacrifices in places such as South America, the Middle East to Africa.

1. Temple dedications

In many parts of Asia today, Chinese parents still bring their children to shrines and temples to be dedicated to various deities according to auspicious days in the Chinese Almanac, a divination guide based on the five elements of gold, wood, water, fire, earth.

2. Spirit guardians

Some common “guardian deities” include wong tai sin, guan yin, tin hau, kwan gong, tudi gong, luk yum sin, or even a tree or a rock.

3. Spirit gifts and offerings

Parents will offer burnt incense, candles, food, golden or silver clothing to their “gods”, and present pieces of red or yellow paper that list their wishes and address, as well as the child’s name and birthday. Sometimes, they will include new clothes, bowls, cups or chopsticks to signify the “new life” the deities will give their children.

4. Consulting mediums and witchcraft

Chinese parents also consult monks, mediums or fortune tellers for their children’s name, birth date and birth time for improved “good luck”.

5. Name selection

Often, specific names are chosen to balance out the five elements in relation to birth times. Highly symbolic Chinese characters are carefully selected, with the word for dragon (which the Bible uses as a symbol for Satan) being popular.

Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world…

Such practices are an affront to the Lord of lords who created every single baby in the womb.

Isaiah 44:24 ESV Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: “I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself,

Psalm 127:3 ESV Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.

Check our spiritual heritage

God’s promised King Solomon the throne of Israel forever as well as great wisdom, riches and honour. At the same time, God also issued a solemn warning to Solomon in 1 Kings 9:6 saying, “But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight…” Unfortunately, Solomon’s heart turned away from God in his old age. He built altars for Ashtoreth, an occult moon goddess and consort of Baal (often associated with Satan) and Molech, a god associated with child sacrifice.

Solomon’s son, King Rehoboam, took over after his death. Rehoboam’s mother was an Ammonite whose people worshipped Molech. In Leviticus 20:2, the Bible states that children were being “given to Molech” and that this practice is forbidden. Following in his father’s footsteps, Rehoboam built more idolatrous altars and even tolerated male cult prostitutes. With such spiritual abominations, the young king lost God’s favour and the kingdom was invaded and raided by foreign kings.

1 Kings 11:4,6 ESV For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord…

1 Kings 14:25-26 In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. He took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house…

Our family’s faith will impact our ability to turn to God wholeheartedly. A study has shown that we tend to follow our parents’ belief systems and are more likely to be more open to God’s supernatural work in our lives if they believe in Him too. A study published inCognitive Sciencesaid that “In religious stories that included ordinarily impossible events brought about by divine intervention, claims about the status of the protagonist varied sharply with exposure to religion. Children who went to church or were enrolled in a parochial school, or both, judged the protagonist in religious stories to be a real person, whereas secular children with no such exposure to religion judged the protagonist in religious stories to be fictional.”

Matthew 18:3 NLT Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Our parents’ belief systems not only have an impact on our thinking but also on our spiritual well being. Families act as spiritual authorities and guardians over children. With such inherent control and power over us when we were relatively defenceless, they can invite the wrong type of spirits into our young lives through their idolatrous or occult practices. As a result, we may not be able to fully embrace the hope, joy and peace we are promised through the Holy Spirit – until we renounce the enemy’s spiritual foothold in our lives from childhood.

1 Corinthians 10:20 ESV No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.

A believer recounts this personal experience. “I was brought to a temple to be dedicated as a baby because I was always sick. As a child growing up, my grandmother would get pieces of paper from the temple with “blessings” written on it, light them on fire and then throw them into a cup of water for me to drink. I later became a Christian at age 12 but it wasn’t until 20 years later that I finally felt free to worship God without fear. Some friends explained to me that baby dedications at temples are like “contracts” with Satan that need to be renounced. As I prayed to renounce my spiritual heritage in the temple, it felt like I was in an actual physical battle as I cast out the temple spirits in Jesus name. As my friends helped me, I told the demonic spirits to leave me for good and rededicated myself completely to Jesus Christ. Afterwards, I feel a deep sense of peace and comfort, freedom and stillness that I hadn’t known before.“

Renewing our spiritual heritage

1. Confess baby dedications to evil spirits

First, we need to confess and acknowledge out loud that our baby dedications were to demons and not to God, and that Jesus is our personal Lord and Saviour. His sacrifice on the cross took away our sins and we now choose to be forgiven, cleansed and resurrected to new life through Him.

Romans 10:9-10 ESV … if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

2. Repent and turn away from unholy covenants

Next, we should break all unholy covenants made with Satan through pagan temple baby dedications or name selections by means of fortune telling, superstitions or witchcraft. We need to turn away from such ungodly practices for good.

3. Command the spirits to leave

Following our repentance, we must name the spirits that we were dedicated to as children and command them to leave us in Jesus’ name, never to return. We can ask the Holy Spirit to cleanse us and transfer us from the domain of darkness to our Saviour’s kingdom. If we were dedicated to people or places, we must name and cut soul ties with them too, by following the same steps.

Colossians 1:13-14 ESV He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

4. Be baptised and dedicate ourselves wholly to Jesus Christ

Baptism signifies our death and resurrection to new life in Jesus Christ. It is an important step in our faith journey and we must all be baptised. From this point onwards, we must also obey Jesus in our heart, thoughts and actions so that Satan cannot set up other footholds in our lives.

Romans 6:4 ESV We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Matthew 16:24 ESV Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

5. Parents can also do the same for our children

Parents can follow these steps described above for children and be faithful in teaching them the ways of the Lord from here onwards.

Deuteronomy 11:18-19 “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

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Teaching Humble Hearts aims to equip disciples of Jesus with practical answers on how to discover and experience the abundant life that our Saviour promised and develop the spiritual discernment, power, love and self-control to thrive in a confusing and broken world.